Ive been replaying quite of a few of my favorite games lately (mostly because Im broke at the moment), and Ive discovered one of my least favorite things in all of gaming. Its a downright shame to an entire game, sometimes an entire series, when the finale completely disregards the use of a majority of the abilities or mechanics youve honed over the course of game play. Its frustrating when the final boss is immune to the 255 missiles Ive collected, or when an utterly new mechanic is added that makes every other thing in the inventory useless. The example currently on my mind is the Metroid series. In the older games, it was well worth the hunt for all the items because missiles were reliable damage that was dependent on your ammo supply, which was directly related to how much work you put in. It was satisfying to down a boss with missiles because you collected them for that exact reason. Getting the Screw Attack was rewarding because it made you feel genuinely stronger, and made difficult parts of the game instantly easier because the payoff was correlated to how far in the game you were. Even in Metroid Prime 1, the Meta Ridley and Prime battles were fun because you had to utilize your arsenal. There were appropriate times for different missiles, beams, visors, Morph Ball... Basically, you felt powerful because your arsenal was so diverse and youve spent all game doing specifically that. Metroid Prime 3 had a dissatisfying finish for me because nothing but the Hyper Beam was even effective, and I only collected everything for a secret ending that raised more questions than answers. The feeling that the industry is giving me is that everything needs to be as biggerer as possible, but thats missing the soul of whats happening to the gamer as they play the damn game. Egoraptor recently put out a Zelda video with a similar gripe about a shift in soul, and it seems like a persisting issue. Thoughts, anyone?
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 02:34:03 +0000
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